


The Obligatory Scar Fic

by Taarbas



Series: Surfacers [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, also acid burns, also stuck in the rain situations are my jam so ya, but niether in great detail, honestly its pretty self indulgent I just wanted them to cuddle up and talk, warning: needles are discussed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taarbas/pseuds/Taarbas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracy and X6 are spending the night in an old cafe. Tracy decides to steal the sunglasses off his face, and asks him about the scar in his eyebrow. They end up trading stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Obligatory Scar Fic

“Well, that’s just our luck,” Tracy grumbled, shaking rainwater out of her hair. X6 nodded, glaring out the window at the storm. One moment, it had been sunny and warm, the next? Booming thunder, sleeting rain, and an influx of clicks from Tracy’s geiger counter. The pair had looked up in despair, him more so than Tracy, and darted through the alleys of Boston, hoping to stumble across an empty shelter. The first place they found was an old supermarket, populated entirely by gunners. The staccato bang of gunfire had them scrambling out, rushing down a side alley that opened up into a large courtyard. It seemed safe enough, until they heard the telltale shouting of Super Mutants. Cursing, Tracy had grabbed him and bolted, barreling headlong down an alley while he fired over his shoulder at the pursuing giants. They had chased the pair for a few minutes, Tracy’s counter getting louder with each passing second and sending X6’s anxiety higher and higher. Rainstorms were one thing, yes Tracy might get sick but she’d pull through, he believed that. A radstorm? That he wasn’t so sure. If she mutated, Father would most likely throw her out of the Institute, mother or not. He didn’t know what he’d do if that happened. Father would most likely have her hunted down, possibly by X6. He didn’t think he’d be able to do that. Thankfully, his musings didn’t get much farther as Tracy pulled him into an old cafe, the windows blown out in the front but otherwise in one piece. It was dry towards the back wall, and the storage room behind the counter had no windows.  

“At least your counter is no longer clicking, ma’am,” He said, unzipping his coat and dropping the soaked garment to the floor, rolling his shoulders. Tracy shrugged, pulling out a bag of Radaway and rolling up her sleeve. 

“That’s true. Soaked up a lotta rads though. Can you do me a favor? Can you see if any of the furniture out there is dry? It’s gonna get cold, and I’d like to start a fire. Radiation doesn’t affect you, right?” As she spoke, she worked the needle into her arm, holding the bag up until the orange liquid flowed down. 

“Radiation cannot harm synths,” He said, getting to his feet and heading out of the small room. Most of the furniture towards the front was completely waterlogged, the old wood molding and rotting. However, a few chairs sat towards the back, not completely soaked. Raiders had clearly picked the place clean. Regardless, X6 picked them up, heading towards the backroom. Tracy was pacing when he walked in, her head bowed as she gave the Radaway the occasional squeeze. Ideally, she’d be lying still with the bag suspended above her. However, he knew she’d never do it. He had seen her take Radaway more times than he could count, and the only time she took it the way she was supposed was the time Hancock had sat on her chest and Nick had held it up, one hand curled around her leg. She could have easily tossed the much smaller ghoul off her, thrown the detective to the side, but she had let them dote, staring up at the ceiling as Nick lectured her on the importance of staying out of Radstorms. X6 had thought that maybe he had gotten to her, but the next Radstorm Tracy was running through it, X6 at her heels and trying to tell her to take cover. She hadn’t listened, of course, not until he was so wound up he was practically yelling at her. Now, she took cover as soon as she could, at least when she was with him. Somehow he doubted she did when she was out with the others. 

She jumped when he set them down, pausing to look a them for a few moments before smiling and pulling out her lighter. “Thanks doll,” She said, walking over and examining them. “They’re still pretty dry, they’ll do nicely.” With that, she slammed a booted foot down onto one of the chairs, the wood splintering and cracking under her heavy foot. He jumped, taking a step back as a few wood chips went flying. 

“Ma’am! You shouldn’t be doing that. You need to rest for the Radaway to work,” He scolded, taking a few cautious steps towards her. She huffed, looking at the chairs and then back to him.

“I’ll rest after I start the fire.” 

“Ma’am, no. You will rest now, and I will take care of it,” He reached for the lighter, and she glared, stuffing it down the front of her vault suit before he had time to react. He bit back a frustrated sigh. “ _ Ma’am _ ,”

“No. Let’s make a deal. You want me to rest, and I want to start the fire. You let me do that, and I’ll chill for the rest of the night. Deal?” He ground his teeth together, puzzling over whether he could get her to do less and rest more. Judging by the stubborn set to her jaw and her narrowed eyes, he doubted it. With a sigh, he relented, stepping back and letting her wail kicks on the chairs. She smirked, easily reducing the wood to broken pieces with little more than a few well placed kicks. He honestly shouldn’t of been surprised, he’d seen her use her legs in combat, incapacitating enemies when she could. Hell, Deacon had dared her to try to crush various things between them once. It had started with little things, like tatos and balloons, but had quickly progressed to melons and gourds. She did it all with ease. Once the chairs were nothing more than broken sticks, Tracy dug in her pack, pulling out a bottle of oil she had scavenged a while back. With a happy grin, she poured it over the wood, careful to keep it off the two of them. The floorboards beneath had mostly rotted away, revealing hard stone and concrete. He supposed it was for the best. Removing a piece of wood, she lit the end, tossing it into the oil soaked pile and chuckling as it went up in flames. Heat bloomed from it, warming the small room as the smoke trickled out the door they had left cracked. 

“There, you lit the fire. Now, rest,” He urged, hoping she’d listen. Realistically, she didn’t have to do a damned thing he said. He could beg and plead and scream and she’d have all the right to ignore him. Still, she sighed and stretched out on the ground, the Radaway on her chest and the arm without the needle plugged in tucked under her head like an impromptu pillow. 

“There, happy?” She asked, no venom in her words as she struggled to get comfortable on the hard floor. His mouth twisted into a frown as he walked over, hooking his hands under her arms and dragging her closer to the fire. She yelped, grabbing at his wrist in surprise as he guided her head to rest on his leg. “What’s that for?” 

“You will be comfortable, ma’am,” He replied, picking up the bag of Radaway. “And it will allow me to administer this in the correct way,” She snorted, though he couldn’t help but notice her face had flushed under her numerous scars. 

“Ah, it doesn’t matter how it’s administered. Just gotta stick the pointy end in your arm and you’re good,” He didn’t reply, instead squeezing the bag.  _ It is purely to help administer the Radaway _ , he reasoned to himself,  _ Putting her head in your lap has nothing to do with you. You just want to make sure she is taken care of. _ The reasoning sounded flat even to him. Much to his surprise, she stayed quiet for a long while, letting him fiddle with the Radaway to make sure it was flowing properly. For a few seconds, he thought she had fallen asleep. Until of course she plucked the sunglasses off his face and put them over her eyes. X6 barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he looked down at her, unable to see her eyes under the dark lenses. “Jesus X! Can’t see anything out of these. How do you see at night?” She plucked the off, staring at them in confusion as he shook his head. He reached for them with his free hand, but she dropped her arm, tucking it next to her. Heaving a sigh, he decided trying to get them back wasn’t worth the fight, instead settling back against the wall and giving the bag another squeeze. “You got pretty eyes,” She muttered quietly, reaching up to stroke his cheek. Her brows suddenly furrowed, lips pulling up into something akin to a pout. “How’d you get that?” Her thumb brushed over the slash in his brow, usually hidden by his sunglasses. 

“A runaway synth, ma’am. Do not worry yourself over it,” She frowned, the scars at the corner of her mouth warping.

“I feel a story behind this.”

“No ma’am.”

“Please?” 

“No.” She glowered, flicking his thigh. 

“I’ll tell you how I got this one,” Here she pointed at a long scar that curved over her cheekbone, eventually disappearing into the large burn that covered her nose and forehead. Deciding to play along with her game, he shook his head and gently traced the long one that ran from temple to jaw. 

“I want to know how you got this one,” She caught on to what he was doing, and with a happy smile, she shook her head.

“No dice. How ‘bout this one?” She pointed at the acid burn on her neck and jaw. He knew from her bad habit of going about topless that it continued down her shoulder and bicep, stopping about midway to her elbow. He frowned, pretending to consider it. She only had a few other scars on her face: a trio of slashes down the corner of her mouth, a long line from her nose to her cheek, and her burn. Honestly, the burn was the one he was most curious about, but it was also the one she was most secretive about. 

“Fine. You first.” She beamed, wriggling slightly in his lap to get more comfortable.

“Ok so, you know that before the bombs fell I served in Anchorage, right?” He nodded, having heard stories about it from time to time. “Well, nine times out of ten my division was in power armor. We tended to get real close to the enemy, had flamers and miniguns and all that shit. Well, one time me and a few others are real close to some of the Chinese. One guy managed to get me good with the butt of his gun, which cracked not only my visor, but part of my shoulder. To be fair, the armor we had was old and kinda shitty. So anyway, we do as we’re supposed to and start going deeper into enemy lines. It wasn’t a large group that we were dealing with, so  I didn’t think nothin’ of the crack, and clearly that was a mistake. Well just my luck, one of the guys has some kind of spray gun, like what we used to use to spray weed killer back before the war, and he shoots at me with it. Turns out he’s got some kind of fucking acid in it, which eats right through the crack and my goddamn skin. Rushed back to camp and honestly the rest is kinda a blur. I was under some heavy Med-X. When my memory started working again, I learned the doc patched me up as best he could. Still would have the scars, though. I was lucky it didn’t splash up at my face too bad,” She shrugged, as nonchalant as if she had just told him she didn’t really care for a type of drink instead of how she had acid sprayed onto her face. Disgust filled him and he squeezed her shoulder, wishing he could of been there, done something. He knew it was illogical, but he found he couldn’t help himself. Tracy made him feel things he couldn’t place. It was wrong, and highly inappropriate, but he couldn’t stop them. He could only hope she’d never find out. And in the dead of night, if he secretly thought about her returning those feelings? Well, no one had to know but him. “Your turn,” She chirruped, pinching his thigh. He jumped, swatting her hand away. 

“Very well. I was fairly new when it happened,” He began, brushing her hair out of her eyes. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but he did. “And I was sent to Trinity Tower. At that point, the Super Mutants had not taken it over, and it was populated by some pathetic raiders. They had the synth on the top floor, and thought that by guarding it they could gain some sort of payment. I worked my way from the bottom floor to the top, killing them off while formulating a plan to get the synth and relay back as soon as possible. When I reached the top, I decided I would try to grab them from behind and put them in a choke hold. Clearly, it wasn’t my smartest move. After dealing with the last few raiders in the room, I approached the synth, intending to grab them and severely underestimating their strength. They were a small woman, and had shaved their head so no one could grab their hair. When I went for her neck, she grabbed my arm and managed to overbalance me and throw me over her shoulder and to the ground,” Tracy snickered, and he remembered her doing the same thing to a few enemies they had crossed paths with. Then again, Tracy was far from a small woman. “I hit my forehead on a desk and cracked it open, right above my eye. I managed to get ahold of her and relay to the Institute, but the cut was infected. The scientists ran a few tests, and determined it couldn’t harm any of us synths. However, they used me as a test subject for possible cures. As a result, it scarred,” Tracy’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t say anything, instead reaching up and grabbing his hand, squeezing tightly. At first he was confused, it was a small scar, and not a particularly sad story, until he remembered Tracy didn’t behave like the scientists. 

“Nice goin’,” She teased, clearly trying to hide her anger. He smirked, tracing the many scars that decorated her face. 

“At least my face does not look like a jigsaw puzzle, ma’am,” She laughed, slapping his leg with no real force. 

“That’s fair. Hey, the Radaway’s empty,” She sat up, taking the bag from him and slipping the needle out of her arm. Slipping the cap back over it, she tucked the empty bag into her pack. “Thanks X, saved me a sore neck,” She said, taking her place at his side by the fire. He nodded, beating back the urge to draw her close again. He would content himself with sitting next to her. He would not push his boundaries. Warm hands grabbed his shoulders, pulling him down. He followed less than gracefully, catching himself just before she could guide him to lay his head in her lap. “It’s only fair you get a turn,” She teased, her lips twisted into a small smile. He allowed her to guide him, attempting to ignore the way his heart began to pound. Once they both were comfortable, she dropped her hand down to his face, her thumb rubbing against his jaw as she watched the flames. His face flushed, and she chuckled, resting her hand on his chest. He’d blame it on the warmth from the fire. 


End file.
